Chapter 6

HOW SAMKIN AYLWARD WAGERED HIS FEATHER-BED.

He was a middle-sized man, of most massive and robust build, with
an arching chest and extraordinary breadth of shoulder. His
shaven face was as brown as a hazel-nut, tanned and dried by the
weather, with harsh, well-marked features, which were not
improved by a long white scar which stretched from the corner of
his left nostril to the angle of the jaw. His eyes were bright
and searching, with something of menace and of authority in their
quick glitter, and his mouth was firm-set and hard, as befitted
one who was wont to set his face against danger. A straight
sword by his side and a painted long-bow jutting over his
shoulder proclaimed his profession, while his scarred brigandine
of chain-mail and his dinted steel cap showed that he was no
holiday soldier, but one who was even now fresh from the wars. A
white surcoat with the lion of St. George in red upon the centre
covered his broad breast, while a sprig of new-plucked broom at
the side of his head-gear gave a touch of gayety and grace to his
grim, war-worn equipment.

"Ha!" he cried, blinking like an owl in the sudden glare. "Good
even to you, comrades! Hola! a woman, by my soul!" and in an
instant he had clipped Dame Eliza round the waist and was kissing
her violently. His eye happening to wander upon the maid,
however, he instantly abandoned the mistress and danced off after
the other, who scurried in confusion up one of the ladders, and
dropped the heavy trap-door upon her pursuer. He then turned
back and saluted the landlady once more with the utmost relish
and satisfaction.

"La petite is frightened," said he. "Ah, c'est l'amour, l'amour!
Curse this trick of French, which will stick to my throat. I
must wash it out with some good English ale. By my hilt!
camarades, there is no drop of French blood in my body, and I am
a true English bowman, Samkin Aylward by name; and I tell you,
mes amis, that it warms my very heart-roots to set my feet on the
dear old land once more. When I came off the galley at Hythe,
this very day, I down on my bones, and I kissed the good brown
earth, as I kiss thee now, ma belle, for it was eight long years
since I had seen it. The very smell of it seemed life to me.
But where are my six rascals? Hola, there! En avant!"

At the order, six men, dressed as common drudges, marched
solemnly into the room, each bearing a huge bundle upon his head.
They formed in military line, while the soldier stood in front of
them with stern eyes, checking off their several packages.

"Number one--a French feather-bed with the two counter-panes of
white sendall," said he.

"Here, worthy sir," answered the first of the bearers, laying a
great package down in the corner.

"Number two--seven ells of red Turkey cloth and nine ells of
cloth of gold. Put it down by the other. Good dame, I prythee
give each of these men a bottrine of wine or a jack of ale.
Three--a full piece of white Genoan velvet with twelve ells of
purple silk. Thou rascal, there is dirt on the hem! Thou hast
brushed it against some wall, coquin!"

"Not I, most worthy sir," cried the carrier, shrinking away from
the fierce eyes of the bowman.

"I say yes, dog! By the three kings! I have seen a man gasp out
his last breath for less. Had you gone through the pain and
unease that I have done to earn these things you would be at more
care. I swear by my ten finger-bones that there is not one of
them that hath not cost its weight in French blood! Four--an
incense-boat, a ewer of silver, a gold buckle and a cope worked
in pearls. I found them, camarades, at the Church of St. Denis
in the harrying of Narbonne, and I took them away with me lest
they fall into the hands of the wicked. Five--a cloak of fur
turned up with minever, a gold goblet with stand and cover, and a
box of rose-colored sugar. See that you lay them together.
Six--a box of monies, three pounds of Limousine gold-work, a pair
of boots, silver tagged, and, lastly, a store of naping linen.
So, the tally is complete! Here is a groat apiece, and you may go."

"Go whither, worthy sir?" asked one of the carriers.

"Whither? To the devil if ye will. What is it to me? Now, ma
belle, to supper. A pair of cold capons, a mortress of brawn, or
what you will, with a flask or two of the right Gascony. I have
crowns in my pouch, my sweet, and I mean to spend them. Bring in
wine while the food is dressing. Buvons my brave lads; you shall
each empty a stoup with me."

Here was an offer which the company in an English inn at that or
any other date are slow to refuse. The flagons were re-gathered
and came back with the white foam dripping over their edges. Two
of the woodmen and three of the laborers drank their portions off
hurriedly and trooped off together, for their homes were distant
and the hour late. The others, however, drew closer, leaving the
place of honor to the right of the gleeman to the free-handed
new-comer. He had thrown off his steel cap and his brigandine,
and had placed them with his sword, his quiver and his painted
long-bow, on the top of his varied heap of plunder in the corner.
Now, with his thick and somewhat bowed legs stretched in front of
the blaze, his green jerkin thrown open, and a great quart pot
held in his corded fist, he looked the picture of comfort and of
good-fellowship. His hard-set face had softened, and the thick
crop of crisp brown curls which had been hidden by his helmet
grew low upon his massive neck. He might have been forty years
of age, though hard toil and harder pleasure had left their grim
marks upon his features. Alleyne had ceased painting his pied
merlin, and sat, brush in hand, staring with open eyes at a type
of man so strange and so unlike any whom he had met. Men had
been good or had been bad in his catalogue, but here was a man
who was fierce one instant and gentle the next, with a curse on
his lips and a smile in his eye. What was to be made of such a
man as that?

It chanced that the soldier looked up and saw the questioning
glance which the young clerk threw upon him. He raised his
flagon and drank to him, with a merry flash of his white teeth.

"I never have," said Alleyne frankly, "though I have oft heard
talk of their deeds."

"By my hilt!" cried the other, "if you were to cross the narrow
sea you would find them as thick as bees at a tee-hole. Couldst
not shoot a bolt down any street of Bordeaux, I warrant, but you
would pink archer, squire, or knight. There are more
breastplates than gaberdines to be seen, I promise you."

"And where got you all these pretty things?" asked Hordle John,
pointing at the heap in the corner.

"Where there is as much more waiting for any brave lad to pick it
up. Where a good man can always earn a good wage, and where he
need look upon no man as his paymaster, but just reach his hand
out and help himself. Aye, it is a goodly and a proper life.
And here I drink to mine old comrades, and the saints be with
them! Arouse all together, me, enfants, under pain of my
displeasure. To Sir Claude Latour and the White Company!"

"Sir Claude Latour and the White Company!" shouted the
travellers, draining off their goblets.

"Well quaffed, mes braves! It is for me to fill your cups again,
since you have drained them to my dear lads of the white jerkin.
Hola! mon ange, bring wine and ale. How runs the old stave?--

We'll drink all together
To the gray goose feather
And the land where the gray goose flew."

He roared out the catch in a harsh, unmusical voice, and ended
with a shout of laughter. "I trust that I am a better bowman
than a minstrel," said he.

"Methinks I have some remembrance of the lilt," remarked the
gleeman, running his fingers over the strings, "Hoping that it
will give thee no offence, most holy sir"--with a vicious snap at
Alleyne--"and with the kind permit of the company, I will even
venture upon it."

Many a time in the after days Alleyne Edricson seemed to see that
scene, for all that so many which were stranger and more stirring
were soon to crowd upon him. The fat, red-faced gleeman, the
listening group, the archer with upraised finger beating in time
to the music, and the huge sprawling figure of Hordle John, all
thrown into red light and black shadow by the flickering fire in
the centre--memory was to come often lovingly back to it. At the
time he was lost in admiration at the deft way in which the
jongleur disguised the loss of his two missing strings, and the
lusty, hearty fashion in which he trolled out his little ballad
of the outland bowmen, which ran in some such fashion as this:

What of the bow?
The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;
So men who are free
Love the old yew tree
And the land where the yew tree grows.

What of the cord?
The cord was made in England:
A rough cord, a tough cord,
A cord that bowmen love;
So we'll drain our jacks
To the English flax
And the land where the hemp was wove.

What of the shaft?
The shaft was cut in England:
A long shaft, a strong shaft,
Barbed and trim and true;
So we'll drink all together
To the gray goose feather
And the land where the gray goose flew.

What of the men?
The men were bred in England:
The bowman--the yeoman--
The lads of dale and fell
Here's to you--and to you;
To the hearts that are true
And the land where the true hearts dwell.

"Well sung, by my hilt!" shouted the archer in high delight.
"Many a night have I heard that song, both in the old war-time
and after in the days of the White Company, when Black Simon of
Norwich would lead the stave, and four hundred of the best bowmen
that ever drew string would come roaring in upon the chorus. I
have seen old John Hawkwood, the same who has led half the
Company into Italy, stand laughing in his beard as he heard it,
until his plates rattled again. But to get the full smack of it
ye must yourselves be English bowmen, and be far off upon an
outland soil."

Whilst the song had been singing Dame Eliza and the maid had
placed a board across two trestles, and had laid upon it the
knife, the spoon, the salt, the tranchoir of bread, and finally
the smoking dish which held the savory supper. The archer
settled himself to it like one who had known what it was to find
good food scarce; but his tongue still went as merrily as his
teeth.

"It passes me," he cried, "how all you lusty fellows can bide
scratching your backs at home when there are such doings over the
seas. Look at me--what have I to do? It is but the eye to the
cord, the cord to the shaft, and the shaft to the mark. There is
the whole song of it. It is but what you do yourselves for
pleasure upon a Sunday evening at the parish village butts."

"And the wage?" asked a laborer.

"You see what the wage brings," he answered. "I eat of the best,
and I drink deep. I treat my friend, and I ask no friend to
treat me. I clap a silk gown on my girl's back. Never a
knight's lady shall be better betrimmed and betrinketed. How of
all that, mon garcon? And how of the heap of trifles that you
can see for yourselves in yonder corner? They are from the South
French, every one, upon whom I have been making war. By my hilt!
camarades, I think that I may let my plunder speak for itself."

"It seems indeed to be a goodly service," said the tooth-drawer.

"Tete bleu! yes, indeed. Then there is the chance of a ransom.
Why, look you, in the affair at Brignais some four years back,
when the companies slew James of Bourbon, and put his army to the
sword, there was scarce a man of ours who had not count, baron,
or knight. Peter Karsdale, who was but a common country lout
newly brought over, with the English fleas still hopping under
his doublet, laid his great hands upon the Sieur Amaury de
Chatonville, who owns half Picardy, and had five thousand crowns
out of him, with his horse and harness. 'Tis true that a French
wench took it all off Peter as quick as the Frenchman paid it;
but what then? By the twang of string! it would be a bad thing
if money was not made to be spent; and how better than on
woman--eh, ma belle?"

"It would indeed be a bad thing if we had not our brave archers
to bring wealth and kindly customs into the country," quoth Dame
Eliza, on whom the soldier's free and open ways had made a deep
impression.

"A toi, ma cherie!" said he, with his hand over his heart.
"Hola! there is la petite peeping from behind the door. A toi,
aussi, ma petite! Mon Dieu! but the lass has a good color!"

"There is one thing, fair sir," said the Cambridge student in his
piping voice, "which I would fain that you would make more clear.
As I understand it, there was peace made at the town of Bretigny
some six years back between our most gracious monarch and the
King of the French. This being so, it seems most passing strange
that you should talk so loudly of war and of companies when there
is no quarrel between the French and us."

"Meaning that I lie," said the archer, laying down his knife.

"May heaven forfend!" cried the student hastily. "_Magna est
veritas sed rara_, which means in the Latin tongue that archers
are all honorable men. I come to you seeking knowledge, for it
is my trade to learn."

"I fear that you are yet a 'prentice to that trade," quoth the
soldier; "for there is no child over the water but could answer
what you ask. Know then that though there may be peace between
our own provinces and the French, yet within the marches of
France there is always war, for the country is much divided
against itself, and is furthermore harried by bands of flayers,
skinners, Brabacons, tardvenus, and the rest of them. When every
man's grip is on his neighbor's throat, and every five-sous-piece
of a baron is marching with tuck of drum to fight whom he will,
it would be a strange thing if five hundred brave English boys
could not pick up a living. Now that Sir John Hawkwood hath gone
with the East Anglian lads and the Nottingham woodmen into the
service of the Marquis of Montferrat to fight against the Lord of
Milan, there are but ten score of us left, yet I trust that I may
be able to bring some back with me to fill the ranks of the White
Company. By the tooth of Peter! it would be a bad thing if I
could not muster many a Hamptonshire man who would be ready to
strike in under the red flag of St. George, and the more so if
Sir Nigel Loring, of Christchurch, should don hauberk once more
and take the lead of us."

"Ah, you would indeed be in luck then," quoth a woodman; "for it
is said that, setting aside the prince, and mayhap good old Sir
John Chandos, there was not in the whole army a man of such tried
courage."

"It is sooth, every word of it," the archer answered. "I have
seen him with these two eyes in a stricken field, and never did
man carry himself better. Mon Dieu! yes, ye would not credit it
to look at him, or to hearken to his soft voice, but from the
sailing from Orwell down to the foray to Paris, and that is clear
twenty years, there was not a skirmish, onfall, sally, bushment,
escalado or battle, but Sir Nigel was in the heart of it. I go
now to Christchurch with a letter to him from Sir Claude Latour
to ask him if he will take the place of Sir John Hawkwood; and
there is the more chance that he will if I bring one or two
likely men at my heels. What say you, woodman: wilt leave the
bucks to loose a shaft at a nobler mark?"

The forester shook his head. "I have wife and child at Emery
Down," quoth he; "I would not leave them for such a venture."

"You, then, young sir?" asked the archer.

"Nay, I am a man of peace," said Alleyne Edricson. "Besides, I
have other work to do."

"Peste!" growled the soldier, striking his flagon on the board
until the dishes danced again. "What, in the name of the devil,
hath come over the folk? Why sit ye all moping by the fireside,
like crows round a dead horse, when there is man's work to be
done within a few short leagues of ye? Out upon you all, as a
set of laggards and hang-backs! By my hilt I believe that the
men of England are all in France already, and that what is left
behind are in sooth the women dressed up in their paltocks and
hosen."

"Archer," quoth Hordle John, "you have lied more than once and
more than twice; for which, and also because I see much in you to
dislike, I am sorely tempted to lay you upon your back."

"By my hilt! then, I have found a man at last!" shouted the
bowman. "And, 'fore God, you are a better man than I take you
for if you can lay me on my back, mon garcon. I have won the ram
more times than there are toes to my feet, and for seven long
years I have found no man in the Company who could make my jerkin
dusty."

"We have had enough bobance and boasting," said Hordle John,
rising and throwing off his doublet. "I will show you that there
are better men left in England than ever went thieving to
France."

"Pasques Dieu!" cried the archer, loosening his jerkin, and
eyeing his foeman over with the keen glance of one who is a judge
of manhood. "I have only once before seen such a body of a man.
By your leave, my red-headed friend, I should be right sorry to
exchange buffets with you; and I will allow that there is no man
in the Company who would pull against you on a rope; so let that
be a salve to your pride. On the other hand I should judge that
you have led a life of ease for some months back, and that my
muscle is harder than your own. I am ready to wager upon myself
against you if you are not afeard."

"Afeard, thou lurden!" growled big John. "I never saw the face
yet of the man that I was afeard of. Come out, and we shall see
who is the better man."

"But the wager?"

"I have nought to wager. Come out for the love and the lust of
the thing."

"Nought to wager!" cried the soldier. "Why, you have that which
I covet above all things. It is that big body of thine that I am
after. See, now, mon garcon. I have a French feather-bed there,
which I have been at pains to keep these years back. I had it at
the sacking of Issodun, and the King himself hath not such a bed.
If you throw me, it is thine; but, if I throw you, then you are
under a vow to take bow and bill and hie with me to France, there
to serve in the White Company as long as we be enrolled."

"A fair wager!" cried all the travellers, moving back their
benches and trestles, so as to give fair field for the wrestlers.

"Then you may bid farewell to your bed, soldier," said Hordle
John.

"Nay; I shall keep the bed, and I shall have you to France in
spite of your teeth, and you shall live to thank me for it. How
shall it be, then, mon enfant? Collar and elbow, or close-lock,
or catch how you can?"

"To the devil with your tricks," said John, opening and shutting
his great red hands. "Stand forth, and let me clip thee."

"Shalt clip me as best you can then," quoth the archer, moving
out into the open space, and keeping a most wary eye upon his
opponent. He had thrown off his green jerkin, and his chest was
covered only by a pink silk jupon, or undershirt, cut low in the
neck and sleeveless. Hordle John was stripped from his waist
upwards, and his huge body, with his great muscles swelling out
like the gnarled roots of an oak, towered high above the soldier.
The other, however, though near a foot shorter, was a man of
great strength; and there was a gloss upon his white skin which
was wanting in the heavier limbs of the renegade monk. He was
quick on his feet, too, and skilled at the game; so that it was
clear, from the poise of head and shine of eye, that he counted
the chances to be in his favor. It would have been hard that
night, through the whole length of England, to set up a finer
pair in face of each other.

Big John stood waiting in the centre with a sullen, menacing eye,
and his red hair in a bristle, while the archer paced lightly and
swiftly to the right and the left with crooked knee and hands
advanced. Then with a sudden dash, so swift and fierce that the
eye could scarce follow it, he flew in upon his man and locked
his leg round him. It was a grip that, between men of equal
strength, would mean a fall; but Hordle John tore him off from
him as he might a rat, and hurled him across the room, so that
his head cracked up against the wooden wall.

"Ma foi!" cried the bowman, passing his fingers through his
curls, "you were not far from the feather-bed then, mon gar. A
little more and this good hostel would have a new window."

Nothing daunted, he approached his man once more, but this time
with more caution than before. With a quick feint he threw the
other off his guard, and then, bounding upon him, threw his legs
round his waist and his arms round his bull-neck, in the hope of
bearing him to the ground with the sudden shock. With a bellow
of rage, Hordle John squeezed him limp in his huge arms; and
then, picking him up, cast him down upon the floor with a force
which might well have splintered a bone or two, had not the
archer with the most perfect coolness clung to the other's
forearms to break his fall. As it was, he dropped upon his feet
and kept his balance, though it sent a jar through his frame
which set every joint a-creaking. He bounded back from his
perilous foeman; but the other, heated by the bout, rushed madly
after him, and so gave the practised wrestler the very vantage
for which he had planned. As big John flung himself upon him,
the archer ducked under the great red hands that clutched for
him, and, catching his man round the thighs, hurled him over his
shoulder--helped as much by his own mad rush as by the trained
strength of the heave. To Alleyne's eye, it was as if John had
taken unto himself wings and flown. As he hurtled through the
air, with giant limbs revolving, the lad's heart was in his
mouth; for surely no man ever yet had such a fall and came
scathless out of it. In truth, hardy as the man was, his neck
had been assuredly broken had he not pitched head first on the
very midriff of the drunken artist, who was slumbering so
peacefully in the corner, all unaware of these stirring doings.
The luckless limner, thus suddenly brought out from his dreams,
sat up with a piercing yell, while Hordle John bounded back into
the circle almost as rapidly as he had left it.

"One more fall, by all the saints!" he cried, throwing out his
arms.

"Not I," quoth the archer, pulling on his clothes, "I have come
well out of the business. I would sooner wrestle with the great
bear of Navarre."

"It was a trick," cried John.

"Aye was it. By my ten finger-bones! it is a trick that will add
a proper man to the ranks of the Company."

"Oh, for that," said the other, "I count it not a fly; for I had
promised myself a good hour ago that I should go with thee, since
the life seems to be a goodly and proper one. Yet I would fain
have had the feather-bed."

"I doubt it not, mon ami," quoth the archer, going back to his
tankard. "Here is to thee, lad, and may we be good comrades to
each other! But, hola! what is it that ails our friend of the
wrathful face?"

The unfortunate limner had been sitting up rubbing himself
ruefully and staring about with a vacant gaze, which showed that
he knew neither where he was nor what had occurred to him.
Suddenly, however, a flash of intelligence had come over his
sodden features, and he rose and staggered for the door. "'Ware
the ale!" he said in a hoarse whisper, shaking a warning finger
at the company. "Oh, holy Virgin, 'ware the ale!" and slapping
his hands to his injury, he flitted off into the darkness, amid a
shout of laughter, in which the vanquished joined as merrily as
the victor. The remaining forester and the two laborers were
also ready for the road, and the rest of the company turned to
the blankets which Dame Eliza and the maid had laid out for them
upon the floor. Alleyne, weary with the unwonted excitements of
the day, was soon in a deep slumber broken only by fleeting
visions of twittering legs, cursing beggars, black robbers, and
the many strange folk whom he had met at the "Pied Merlin."